Magic Item Crafting Concept: Mana Tree

[Chrono]

Working on an idea for a guardian of a tree that produces magical fruits. He can use the fruits for various magical effects, but without a fruit he cannot use his powers.

I was thinking of using a sponsered magic with a [-3] refresh cost since the tree only produces 2 fruits a day, even though he can take the fruit with him, but it might make sense to treat it more like a place of power [-4] that he can take with him wherever he goes. Possibly even a [-5] since he might be able to technically share the fruit with others if things get desperate.

Thoughts?

[Chrono]

Oh, and in case it matters the fruits are treated like enchanted items. I base the items on a lore 3, -1 for use by everyone.

So a fire fruit will give the caster 3 uses of a fire Weapon:1 attack. A stone skin fruit provides an armor: 1 for one attack.

Since he is tied to the tree, his care (and increased lore) can potentially rais the power.

[Centarion]

The costs you mention for this power seems extremely high.

The power is not sponsored magic (maybe it is in flavor terms, but not mechanically), it does not grant any form of channeling or ritual and does not provide access to sponsor debt (at least not that you described). At also does not seems to give any other bonus.

The power is closer to just allowing the character to craft/declare potions. I think there is a custom power that allows access to potions (or maybe full crafting) somewhere around here, I think it was called Bag of Tricks. It should cost around [-1] and give around 4 enchanted item slots (like refinement).

I found it (from Sancta's custom powers list):

BAG OF TRICKS [-1]
Description: For whatever reason, you have access to a few minor magical trinkets.
Skills affected: Contacts, Resources, Burglary, Lore.
Effects:
Enchanted Items: You have four potions, each with a strength equal to your Contacts, Resources, Burglary, or Lore skill. You may not increase their strength in any way. At the beginning of each session, you must declare which potions you have on hand.
More Trinkets [-1]. You have four additional potions. Furthermore, you may choose to leave potion slots open to be filled later with Declarations.

[Chrono]

So even though the 'crafting' is limited to specific materials, in this case the tree, it still would work mechanically as Refinement and Enchanted Item Crafting?

The reason I shied away from that at first was the limits of item slots. I was eventually going to work the character to producing several of these fruits to stir up the magical community, much like what Victor Sells did with his Third Eye potions in Chicago.

[Centarion]

I think having access to magical fruits is well modeled by Bag of Tricks. He has access to magical items because he cares for a tree that produces them, he uses Lore to care for the tree, so that is what determines the strength. Basically he declares what Fruits he has at the beginning of the session and then uses them as you described.

If you wanted to have the tree actually provide a sponsored magic that would also be possible, you could even tie it to an item by making it an item of power. For example you may have a branch of this magic tree that is an item of power allowing the character to cast plant/wood based evocations (or whatever you want to flavor tree magic as) and growth/life based thaumaturgy (maybe as Evothaum), then maybe give some sort of bonus (like a +1 to defensive power or even access to 2 enchanted fruit item slots). This would be in line with other sponsored magics as a [-4] power, if you put it on an item of power it would be either [-2] or [-3] depending on the size.

If this is an npc, you could easily give him some number of Fruit Potion things to use mechanically (costing around 1 refresh for every 4 potion slots) and then if for story reasons you want him to have a larger stockpile somewhere (like Three Eye in a warehouse) you can just say he does as part of the narrative, since it has no real mechanical representation having a warehouse full of magic fruit dosnt really need to be a power. You could however call it an aspect if there is ever a fight in this warehouse and the character could spend fate points to say he has access to more fruit potions by picking them up from a pile.

[Chrono]

Very cool custom power! I think it works well, also. Should I just assume that those items can be shared and mass-produced at a daily limit of his item slots then?

[Centarion]

The power says they are potions, so by default they are shareable. Potions (and this custom power, which is based on them) are limited in how many you can have at a time, not how many you can make per time period (for balance reasons, because when you give the alchemist 2 weeks of down time you don't want him coming back with a thousand potions). So for combats and other crunchy uses I would say limit the character to be able to use [item slots] potions per session. For narrative purposes on the other hand, he can have as many potions/fruits as you want him to have, if you think producing [item slots] per days sounds right then go ahead. 

[Chrono]

So limit the number of uses but not the number produced? That makes sense to me. I could play it up as some sort of effect of the fruits. Eat too many a day and they stop working or make you sick.

[Centarion]

Sounds good to me. I guess the whole point is that the power is providing a tangible benefit in combat (access to potions) but narrative fluff (like being a fruit "dealer") doesn't really have a refresh cost (hence the fact that Wizard's Constitution and Human Guise are 0 cost powers).

I like the explanation.

[Chrono]

Maybe I could make it a [-0] Magik Factory. You can mass-produce enchanted items for story purposes, but you are still limited to using (and sharing) your magic items based on your Item Slots.

[Haru]

You don't have to have a power for that. An aspect works perfect for this. Somebody is wrecking havoc with the fruits provided by you and everything falls back on you. Instant fate points: just add drama.

After that you can pretty much shape the power however you want. You could take evocation and label it "fruits from the mana tree". With fire-figs, air-apples, watermelon-water, earth-elderberry and spirit-strawberries. Narratively it would still be the fruits you derive your power from, it would just be handled like evocation from a mechanical standpoint.

Or you could make it something like this:

Fruits of the Mana Tree (Item of power)[-3]
 rebate [+1] (fruits are rather small)
 modular abilities [-4] (2 modular points)

You can use the 2 modular points for channeling of any type associated with the fruit you are using at the time. From the example above, if you eat a "fire-fig", you would get channeling(fire) for the time being. You could even have some fruits that do completely different things, like give you wings or let you breath under water (granting the aquatic power) or shrink you down to the size of a mouse. Lately I've become really fond of modular abilities for things like this.

[Chrono]

That gives me a great idea for a villain. 

[Sanctaphrax]

Glad to see someone's getting some use out of Bag Of Tricks.

The slot limit can be treated as a production cap if the items don't last very long and your group has a consistent session-length.

If your sessions are each a day, then the tree grows four viable fruit each day and they all rot by the next morning.

I like Haru's take on this stuff.

PS: I should probably reword Bag Of Tricks to make it clear that you get those potions each session. And to make the name of the upgrade work better. And maybe also to let people have non-magical supertech "potions".

It's hard to be satisfied with past creations...